What a very busy and adventurous week in Kipsing. Kipsing is a small community of Samburu pastoralists. It is nearly a three hour drive from the main road, along a bumpy and worn dirt road. The family of Josaphine, a young Samburu who we were working with on a girls project, warmly welcomed us. Josaphine, is dedicated to saving young Samburu girls from early forced marriages, a traditional Samburu practice that is now illegal based on the new Kenyan constitution. Our purpose for going to Kipsing was to assist Josaphine in educating the young girls at the local Primary and Secondary school on their rights, as well as presenting information about the new law to the men and women of the community.
This is the view from the back door of the school.
This is the school courtyard.
Here is the view from a classroom window!
The path leading from the back door of the school!
This place is beautiful!!!
Most shocking about this beautiful, but drought stricken area is the school! Kipsing Academy is a school that educates students in class one through class eight, and most recently, the handful of Form One and Form Two students. The atmosphere of the school is extremely welcoming and unlike any other that I have experienced since coming to Kenya. The headmaster is very concerned about taking care of his students and his teachers. There are inter-class competitions in which classes compete against one another once a year to create a project about something that they have learned. They use locally found materials to build their projects. One of the projects included a replica of Mount Kenya and the roads around it, made from rocks, cement, and white paint. Teachers are able to use these projects in the future to teach their other classes.
An example of one of the projects used as a teach tool!
Here is a diagram of the heart and the regions of Kenya!
Poster with information about the school.
While at Kipsing, the headmaster allowed me to teach a few English classes to the Class Seven and Class Eight students. I was able to teach a forty-minute lesson on using the cover, the pictures, and the title of a story to make a prediction about what the story is about. After explaining to students how to use clues on the cover and in pictures to make a prediction, we read a story about a band of robbers being caught by a police dog. The students at Kipsing were very bright and so much fun to teach!
Additional good news about the project in Kipsing was that Josaphine was able to rescue two girls from early forced marriage, Dini and Saiboku. With permission from their parents, the girls were taken to Iscolo Children’s home and will begin school for the first time. They had never been out of the bush and they were shocked to see roads, cars, buildings, big markets, tea bags in their tea, lights, beds, showers, and so many other things we take for granted. It was a culture shock for the girls but they did an amazing job at adjusting to the new changes. Currently, both girls have settled in and are doing very well in school. It was so much fun to have been apart of such an amazing and impacting project!
A girl shares what she has written about why she should be
aloud to go to school instead of being married for a dowry.
The girls hard at work writing why they want an education!
The group of women that Josaphine spoke to in the community concerning the
rights of their daughters to go to school.
Josaphine with the two girls she rescued and who are currently enrolled in
school in Iscolo.
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